Primary Source Documents for the Study of Russian/Soviet History

Primary Source Documents for the Study of Russian/Soviet History
Recommended by Dr. James Harris, University of Leeds & THF

http://academic.shu.edu/russianhistory/index.php/Main_Page (Translated Documents, Medieval to Modern Russia, from Seton Hall University, New Jersey)

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intro.html ("Revelations from the Russian Archives", Library of Congress)

http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/hpsss  (Interviews with Soviet Emigres. Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System online)

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Collectivisation in Russia | Photographs 1929 to 1934

Collectivisation in Russia | Photographs 1929 to 1934

Resource suggested by Professor Lynne Viola, University of Toronto

see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.


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The Industrialisation of Russia: The Five-Year Plans | Photographs 1928 > 1941

The Industrialisation of Russia: The Five-Year Plans | Photographs 1928 to 1941

Resource suggested by Professor Lynne Viola, University of Toronto

see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.
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Letters from Stalin's Russia: "Remember Us"

Letters from Stalin's Russia: "Remember Us":

"Can you imagine life in a Russian prison camp under Joseph Stalin? Can you imagine what it was like for a child?

Resource suggested by Professor Lynne Viola, University of Toronto
 
see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.


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The Gulag: a select bibliography

Gulag:

Forced Labor Camps: a select bibliography

Edited by Katalin Dobo

Resource suggested by Professor Lynne Viola, University of Toronto
 
see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.
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Gulag: Forced Labor Camps Online Exhibition

Gulag: Forced Labor Camps Online Exhibition

Resource suggested by Professor Lynne Viola, University of Toronto
 
see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.

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English-Language Primary Sources for the Study of Soviet History: an on-line resource

English-Language Primary Sources for the Study of Soviet History: an on-line resource

Conceived of and developed by Professor Terry Martin
Supported by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Education and Harvard University.
Contributions by David Brandenberger, Katia Dianina and Mark Baker. Copyright Terry Martin.

Link to resource (outside THF network).

see also,

Stalinist Terror: Contexts, Origins & Dynamics, an international conference at University of Leeds, 1-5 August, 2010.

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Russian Archives Online > Film Clips & Photographs from the Archives

Karasnogorsk Archives

Be one of the first to watch these historic film clips from the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk.

Link to clips (outside THF network).

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Russian Archives Online > Soviet Propaganda

Soviet Propaganda:

This collection of examples of Soviet-era propaganda is arranged chronologically from the Bolshevik Revolution to the Cold War arms race.

The exhibition is hosted by The Russian Archives Online

Link to exhibition (outside THF network).

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Interview with Stalin Expert Prof. Arch Getty

Arch Getty interviewed by James Harris

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Timeline re Stalin's Rise to Power

Created by Dr. James Harris, Senior Lecturer, University of Leeds.

7 November 1917 The Bolsheviks, a group of approximately 20,000 marxist revolutionaries, seize power in St. Petersburg, Russia.
3 April 1922 Joseph Stalin appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee, with responsibility for administering the process of filling all major Party posts.
8 October 1923 Trotsky writes a letter to the Central Committee and Central Control Commission complaining about the impact of Stalin’s Secretariat on inner-Party democracy.
21 January 1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the universally acknowledged leader of the Bolsheviks, dies after he is incapacitated by a series of strokes.
23-31 May 1924 Politbureau majority attacks Trotsky at XIII Congress of the Communist Party.
Autumn 1924 Stalin develops his theory of Socialism in One Country.
6 January 1925 Trotsky resigns as War Commissar and is largely isolated from power.
September 1925 Stalin clashes with former Politbureau allies Lev Kamenev and Grigorii Zinoviev at a Central Committee plenum after disagreements over policy deepen in the course of 1925.

Spring 1926 Rapprochement between Trotsky and former enemies Kamenev and Zinoviev. They form what is referred to as the “United Opposition”.
December 1927 United Opposition expelled from the Party.

Spring 1928 Stalin’s relationship with Politbureau ally Nikolai Bukharin breaks down in the midst of a crisis in grain collections.
17 December 1929 Bukharin expelled from the Politbureau
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Glossary re 'Stalin's Rise to Power'

Recommended by Dr. James Harris, Senior Lecturer, University of Leeds.

Bolshevik: Literally “one of the majority”. The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party split in 1903 in a dispute over tactics. The majority (the Bolsheviks) were the more radical than the minority (the Mensheviks).

Marxism-Leninism: Lenin’s contributions to Marxist thought. For example, Lenin proposed that a revolutionary underground party could seize power in Russia and use their control of the apparatus of state to build socialism. Marx believed that communism would emerge in the process of the development of capitalism.

New Economic Policy (NEP): A radical change in regime policy initiated at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921. The preceding policy known as “War Communism” had failed, and it was deemed necessary to reintroduce some elements of capitalism.

Secretariat: A department of the Central Committee with responsibility for appointing the Party members to the most important (or “nomenklatura”) posts, such as the heads of the Commissariats (ministries) and regional Party Committees.

Circular Flow of Power: A description of the relationship between Stalin and senior Party officials presented by Robert Daniels in the 1950s and 1960s. Daniel thought that senior Party officials owed their places to Stalin personally, and voted for him at major Party meetings, in exchange for which Stalin ensured that they kept their jobs.

Party Rank and File: Party members not in “nomenklatura” posts. They made up the overwhelming majority of the membership of the Communist Party

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Further Reading re 'Stalin & The Great Terror'

Recommended by Prof. J. Arch Getty, UCLA.

J. Arch Getty, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, 1999.

J. Arch Getty, 'Excesses Are not Permitted: Mass Terror and Stalinist Governance in the Late 1930s,' Russian Review 61: 1 (January 2002), 134-35.

James Harris, “The purging of local cliques in the Urals region, 1936-37” in Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism: New Directions, 2000.

Oleg V. Khlevniuk, The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror, 2004.

Oleg V. Khlevniuk, 'The Objectives of the Great Terror, 1937-1938,' in Soviet History, 1917-53: Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies, ed. E. A. Rees, 1995, 158-76

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Further Reading re 'Stalin's Rise to Power'

Recommended by Dr. James Harris, Senior Lecturer, University of Leeds.

Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (London: Oxford University Press, 1949)

Leonard Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase, 1917-1922 (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1955)

R. V. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960)

Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938 (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1973)

Robert Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929: A Study in History and Personality (London: Chatto and Windus, 1974)

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1932 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982)

Lars Lih, Oleg V. Naumov, Oleg V. Khlevniuk eds., Stalin’s Letters to Molotov, 1925-1936 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)

James Harris, “Stalin as General Secretary: The Appointments Process and the Nature of Stalin’s Power” in Sarah Davies and James Harris eds., Stalin, A New History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

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Further Reading re the question: 'Why did Stalin seek to transform the USSR economically & how successful was he?'

Recommended by Dr. James Harris, Senior Lecturer, University of Leeds.

Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution (1974) ch. 8 “The Crises of Moderation”

Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Cultural Revolution as Class War” in Sheila Fitzpatrick ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-1931 (1978)

Michal Reiman, The Birth of Stalinism: The USSR on the Eve of the “Second Revolution” (1987)

Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR (1992) esp. chs. 7-9.

R. W. Davies, Stephen Wheatcroft and Mark Harrison eds., The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945 (1993) esp. ch. 7

Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

Erik Van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin (2002) ch. 15"

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Timeline of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1928-1941

Recommended by Dr. Alastair Kocho-Williams, Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West of England.

1928: ‘Third Period’ launched; doctrine of Social Fascism

1929: USSR signs Kellog-Briand Pact

Sept 1934: USSR joins league of Nations

May 1935: Pacts with France and Czechoslovakia

August 1935: Comintern supports Popular Fronts

1936 – 1939: Spanish Civil War

Nov 1936: Anti-Comintern pact of Germany & Japan (Italy signs 1937)

Sep 1938: Munich Conference (USSR excluded)

April 1939: Litvinov proposes triple Military alliance – Britain, France and USSR

May 1939: Litvinov dismissed; Molotov becomes Foreign Commissar

August 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact concluded

June 1941: Germany invades USSR

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Further Reading re 'Stalin's ForeignPolicy'

Recommended by Dr. Alastair Kocho-Williams, Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West of England.

Boyce, R and Maiolo, J (eds). The Origins of World War Two: the Debate Continues

Carr, E.H. German-Soviet Relations between the Two World Wars

Godoretsky, G. (ed). Soviet Foreign Policy in Perspective, 1917-1991


Haslam, J. The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39

Hochman, J. The Soviet Union and the Failure of Collective Security, 1934-1938


Nation, R.C., Black Earth, Red Star: A history of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1992

Ragsdale, H. The Soviets, the Munich Crisis and the Coming of World War II

Roberts, G. The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War: Russo-German

Relations and the Road to War, 1933-1941


Roberts, G. The Unholy Alliance: Stalin's Pact with Hitler

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